Awkwafina: The Unlikely Cook pays tribute to her family legacy

Actor and comedian Awkwafina is the first person to tell you she was not a cook.

“I can say I genuinely knew nothing about cooking,” Awkwafina, whose full name is Nora Lum, told The Nightly. “I was genuinely scared of it, genuinely always admonished it.”

So, the concept of building and hosting an unscripted TV show that would see her travelling around the US to learn the culinary arts before opening a pop-up restaurant with her name on it was not exactly her brainchild. But she thought it was a worthy challenge.

That’s because the pop-up would be called Lum’s, and it wouldn’t be the first Lum’s in New York City.

Her paternal great-grandfather, Jimmy Lum, moved to the US from China in the 1930s and opened one of the first Chinese restaurants in the city. Her grandmother then followed in those same footsteps, running her own Lum’s.

Subsequent generations went on to pursue different careers, but it was always part of their shared legacy.

Awkwafina: The Unlikely Cook is the actor’s most personal project she’s ever done, except, she thought for a moment, for that one episode of No Taste Like Home with Antoni Porowski in which she visited South Korea to explore the other half of her cultural lineage.

In The Unlikely Cook, her travels to Texas, Los Angeles and Hawaii connected her to other Asian-American chefs who have been making their mark by nodding to their family’s past while establishing their own visions.

“They either grew up in restaurants or their family had a mum-and-pop, and it’s a subversive act to go back into it now in this generation,” she explained. “It’s not only really hard for Asian-Americans to go back into it and start their own brand, but I think it’s really brave.

“They all seem to be really fulfilled in their work because it was close to their identity. It wasn’t just ‘I’m remaking my family’s restaurants, these are the dishes that are me, and I’m going to decorate my restaurant in a way that feels authentic to just me’.”

That’s how Awkwafina, known for Ocean’s 8, Crazy Rich Asians and The Farewell, approached her pop-up. She picked favourites from the former Lum’s menus, such as lobster egg roll, and put her spin on it.

In some ways, what she did reflected the evolution of Chinese-American cuisine, which was developed from the specificities of that migrant experience. It’s not the same as traditional dishes from the homeland nor is it the same as Chinese-hyphen food from elsewhere in the world.

Think of those classic Australian “Aussie-Chinese” favourites such as Mongolian Lamb, Beef and Black Bean or Lemon Chicken – you won’t find them on American menus nor would you find them on menus in Shanghai, Beijing or Chongqing.

“Lum’s is my family’s restaurant but you’re not trying to embalm it, you need to evolve it,” Awkwafina said. “If Lum’s existed today, the dishes would be different because it always tries to keep up with an audience of today.”

By the end of the eight-episode series, Lum’s did exist, even if just for one night – for now.

The pop-up drew a crowd of VIP guests made up of luminaries in Asian-American culture including chef Roy Choi, but the most special person on the list was Powah Lum, her grandmother who died in August at the age of 92, between when the series was filmed and its release today.

The fact The Unlikely Cook featured her grandmother in the months before her death is something that makes the show even more special to Awkwafina.

“My grandma, in her last months, really loved company, she loved attention. The show really gave her some of the happiest days, especially the pop-up. She couldn’t stop talking about it for weeks after,” Awkwafina recalled.

“I feel like it is special, and it makes the general mission of bringing Lum’s back all that more urgent. I felt the pressure to make her proud, but I’m very, very happy with what the show was able to capture.”

Asian families aren’t always the best at directly saying “I’m proud of you”, so when that moment comes in The Unlikely Cook, it has significance.

“With Asian parents, it’s in so many other things in the way that they tell you ‘I love you’. But my grandma said that a couple of times in my career, but that was a really meaningful one because she could see that I was trying to do Lum’s justice.”

The Unlikely Cook culminates with the pop-up, but now Awkwafina can reveal a renewed Lum’s is something she’s trying to establish on a more permanent basis. There are no concrete dates, but they’re exploring the branding, the menu and they’re hiring staff.

“It’s becoming very real now,” she said.

“The way we used to talk about Lum’s was as if it was a family member that passed away that the grandkids didn’t get to know. But it was very much alive in the discourse of my family.

“At a certain point, my family – my aunts, uncles, cousins and especially my grandparents – were convinced this would never happen again. It wouldn’t make sense for our trajectories.

“So, by doing this, to be able to bring it back in a way that directly honours them is a very special privilege.

“The call is not coming from within, it’s bigger than that. Especially with the passing of my grandma, it’s more urgent. I really want to do it right. If it does fail, I’ll know I did my best.”

Awkwafina: The Unlikely Cook is streaming on Apple TV